In short, this service pack adds surprisingly little to Windows 7. You’ll want to install it — eventually.

And for those of you who followed the conventional wisdom and are waiting for the first service pack before installing Microsoft’s newest OS, you waited without good cause. Win 7 SP1 sports a little nip here and a roll-up tuck there — but there’s not a single significant enhancement to Win7.

And that’s good news. It seems, for once, Microsoft turned out a major new product that was relatively problem-free, right from the start. Service Pack 1’s most significant improvements Uh, there really aren’t any. At least not for the average PC user. (SP1 does have a few nifty new features for Windows Server 2008 R2.) No need to take my word for it. Download Microsoft’s official description, “Notable changes in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1,” available on a Microsoft Download Center page, and see for yourself. “The impact of SP1 on the Windows 7 client operating system is considered to be minimal. Included changes address minor usability issues in specific scenarios,” according to the unusually sedate Microsoft manifesto.

To save you a bit of time and effort, here’s a summary:

Higher-definition connections with Remote Desktop: If you use Remote Desktop (I prefer the third-party service LogMeIn), installing SP1 on both PCs sets up high-definition connection via a new technology Microsoft calls RemoteFX. Snappy name. Based on virtualization technology (info page) Microsoft acquired two years ago when it bought Calista Technologies, RemoteFX makes it possible for full graphics to show through on remote sessions. Someday, we’re promised, you’ll be able to use RemoteFX with your phone. I’m not holding my breath — I’m not even sure I’d want it.

More Windows Live ID support: A technology Microsoft calls “Microsoft Federation Gateway” will give SP1-enhanced PCs improved Windows Live ID authentication to non-Microsoft sites, using a long-established Web services protocol known as the WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile. I thought Win7 already had WS-Federation profiles (detailed in an MSDN article) nailed, but apparently some fix is necessary.

An HDMI patch: I have no idea why MS emphasizes this as one of the noteworthy changes in Win7 SP1. It’s a bug fix to keep HDMI working when a PC is rebooted.

An XML Paper Specification fix: The 10 of you who actually use XPS instead of PDF will be pleased that SP1 fixes a print bug affecting mixed portrait and landscape documents.

Even more-obscure fixes: These include restoring previous folders at sign-in, IKEv2 protocol improvements (used in VPN connections), and a hotfix rollup from November (KB 982018) for Advanced Format disks. Little stuff.

This is a case where “SP” stands for “slim pickings.” Odd circumstances leading to SP1’s release If you follow the trade press, you may have picked up on some, uh, anomalous circumstances surrounding the release of SP1. (We’ll probably see a similar series of leaks, half-leaks, and teasers leading up to Windows 8 — or whatever the next version of Windows is called.)

It appears that the code for SP1 was frozen as far back as mid-to-late-November. The files are digitally signed 11/22/2010. The official build identification string, 7601.17514.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850, refers to November 19 (“101119″). The installer executable is dated November 23. That’s a long, long time ago.

On October 27, 2010, Microsoft posted update KB 976902, which ended up crashing a significant number of machines. Soon dubbed the “Black Hole Update” by industry observers, the patch was pulled quickly and didn’t reappear until January. We now know KB 976902 is a precursor to installing Windows 7 SP1 — and it’s automatically installed for you when you install SP1.

As noted in a winrumors.com story, Microsoft updated its Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit (download page) in November. The updated kit lets corporate sites prevent Windows Update from automatically installing SP1. In retrospect, it looks like MS released these tools right around the time SP1 was finalized. That makes sense: the Windows development team needs to have things nearly locked down before ancillary tools can be distributed.

On January 13, Microsoft’s Russian Windows Virtualization team posted the Win7 SP1 RTM (release to manufacture) build identification string on its MS TechNet site. Subsequently, the final build number was removed from the site and someone at Microsoft posted a notice stating, “Microsoft has not released SP1 to OEMs at this time, though we are on track for a Q1 release, as we previously announced. The comments made in this blog entry included some inaccuracies.” As best I can tell, all of the pertinent details on the Russian TechNet site were correct. Those of you who watched the Windows 7 rollout will remember that Russian-language sites leaked many details about Win7 that were later confirmed. (The Russian sites just might provide accurate prerelease details for Window 8.)

On January 14, a copy of 7601.17514.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850 hit the torrents, and Microsoft immediately and repeatedly denied that the leaked build was final. On January 14, Paul Thurrott reported, “A bit of rumor-busting. Some sites have claimed that SP1 is complete and that Microsoft will release it to its OEM — i.e., PC-maker — partners as soon as tomorrow. That is not the case. SP1 is imminent, but it’s not quite done as I write this.” No doubt that’s what MS’s handlers told Paul, but by all appearances, it wasn’t true.

SP1’s official announcement came three weeks later in a Feb. 9 Microsoft Windows blog. At that point, MS said that OEMs had already received the bits on February 9, that MSDN and TechNet subscribers would get them on February 16 (they did), and that the rest of us will have SP1 on February 22 via the MS Download Center and Windows Update.

That’s an amazingly fast rollout, if indeed MS waited until February 9 for OEMs — blindingly fast if you’re selling new PCs and want to ship them with the latest build of Windows 7. Perhaps it was smoke and mirrors; OEMs have often been fingered as the source of torrent-based leaks of new Microsoft software. Maybe the February 9 OEM announcement was simply damage control.

As I noted at the outset, this first service pack says much about Windows 7. It’s surprisingly free of the growing pains that afflicted earlier versions of Windows. Unless you are completely attached to Windows XP, the wait to upgrade is over.

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praises, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum.

Some days (upon days), we spend more time working on our tools than on our work.

This past week in the Lounge, we see a heightened level of frustration. Post after post describes problems that arise after a software upgrade or hardware repair. Many of these queries are cleared up by helpful solutions, and the forum member happily gets back to work.

But not yet for forum member pcolumbi. She replaced hardware on her desktop computer and then confused her home network by introducing herself to the new system with a different name. Her old self isn’t welcome any more in her homegroup network. How does she get home again on her own system? More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions that you may be able to provide responses to:

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right in to today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Kathleen Atkins is associate editor of Windows Secrets.

Paid members: wish you could create your own blog site? Last month we brought you a portion of Build a Website for Free. This month we continue that theme, giving you for free two chapters of Using WordPress, by Tris Hussey.

One of the top blogging tools on the Web, WordPress is used by most of the leading blog sites. Using WordPress is a complete tutorial for would-be bloggers and is supplemented by integrated, online videos, podcasts, and more.

Chapter 4, “Configuring WordPress to Work Its Best,” covers the basic WordPress settings needed to operate a WordPress blog. It also reviews how to moderate comments and prevent spam.

Chapter 9, “Creating and Managing Content with WordPress,” walks readers through creating and editing posts, using tags and categories, and adding images with the built-in image editor.

Free subscribers: To access this download, make a contribution of any dollar amount to Windows Secrets, and the bonus-download link will appear.

A free tool from Microsoft’s Sysinternals can show you exactly what’s preventing smooth system shutdowns.

Process Explorer works on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 and is available in either a self-contained or a live, Web-based version.

Fixing a slow or hung Windows shutdown Reader Jim Swearingen reports on another glitch that can hinder smooth shutdowns. He’s using an XP system, but the diagnosis and solution can apply to any Windows version.

“My shutdown (or reboot) lingers only a second or two at the ‘Saving your settings …’ screen but hangs at the ‘Windows is shutting down …’ screen.

“Sometimes shutdown (or reboot) continues to completion, but at least 50% of the time it’s necessary to force a manual shutdown or reboot. Adding the -f parameter to my shutdown command (shutdown -s -t 0) has made no difference.

“My OS (XP Pro SP3) is completely up-to-date, the Registry is clean, and the hard-drive partitions are defragged on a continuing basis.”

It sounds as if a low-level software process, or maybe a driver, isn’t responding to the operating system’s shutdown command. XP is sitting there, waiting for an acknowledgment that comes either slowly or not at all.

If you noticed the problem after installing new software or hardware, roll back your system by uninstalling that software or by removing that hardware and uninstalling any drivers associated with it. See whether that solves the problem. If so, the permanent solution may be as simple as switching software or using different drivers for the hardware.

You said your OS was current. Make sure everything else — all drivers and software — is also up-to-date. If the problem persists, it’s time for some more serious troubleshooting.

All the usual cautions apply — make a backup, etc.

The first step is to see what software is still running after you’ve closed all your apps and your PC is otherwise ready to shut down.

I think the best tool for the job is Microsoft Sysinternals’ free Process Explorer. You’ll find info about it on a TechNet page. You can either download Process Explorer as a standalone file or access it as a live, Web-based, run-on-demand tool (see Figure 1). The versions function identically.

When your system is seemingly quiet (no apparent system activity) and ready for shutdown (no open apps, no open files, etc.), launch Process Explorer and see what low-level software is still active. Right-click on any process shown in Process Explorer, select Properties, and you’ll be presented with a wealth of information about that item. (See Figure 2.)

Now comes the fun part. Starting with third-party software, select and kill one process, and then shut down. Note whether Windows closes as it should.

If it doesn’t, restart and repeat, killing one process per cycle until you see a normal shutdown. In this way, you’ll eventually uncover the software that is causing the hang.

The next steps depend on exactly what the malfunctioning software is, but the general idea is simply to remove, update, or otherwise alter that software — and your shutdown delays should be gone! More about problem laptop batteries Petri Laubert writes from Finland:

“I must admit I’m a little behind in reading Windows Secrets, but after reading ‘Extend the life of a laptop’s battery’ [an Oct. 14 LangaList Plus item], I feel I have to share some information.

“You said: ‘Battery condition usually has no effect whatsoever on a notebook when it’s running on AC. In fact, many portable systems will run just fine on AC even with the battery pack removed.’

“But there’s evidence that a dead battery can severely affect the functionality of certain laptops. My Acer lost all networking facilities when the battery died — no taskbar icon, no networking in Control Panel, no network cards in Device Manager. Removing the battery put it all back; reinstalling the dead battery took them away again.

“When I told this to a tech-savvy friend, he said he had witnessed many kinds of strange behavior when a battery died. So if a laptop doesn’t work as it’s supposed to, taking the battery away and running on AC might just do the trick, if portability isn’t needed.”

Thanks, Petri!

Because a truly dead battery would be the same as no battery, I suspect that the effects you saw were caused either by a damaged battery or by a malfunctioning charging system. In the cases you describe, the battery was still active enough to cause trouble.

Perhaps the battery circuits demanded too much current and caused an under-volt or under-amp condition for the rest of the system. Or perhaps the battery reported itself as fully charged when it was actually nearly dead — or vice versa. It’s difficult to diagnose the problem, but clearly something was seriously wrong.

In any case, as you say, most portable computer gear works fine on AC with the battery removed. So, when in doubt, take it (the battery) out!

The LangaList Plus Jan. 21, 2010, article, “The care and feeding of laptop batteries,” contains numerous additional tips and tricks you can employ to get the absolute maximum life from your batteries. Recovering attachments from lost e-mails Joe Titone is salvaging files off a hard drive:

“I’m using a text editor to help a friend recover his e-mails. This works and goes pretty fast. However, Thunderbird puts the attachment into the e-mail and I’m confronted with code that looks like this:

“This is the start of a PowerPoint presentation, but there are other formats as well. Is there any way to convert this block of code to the original attachment?”

Perhaps.

That block of seemingly random letters is MIME code. MIME stands for “Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions” and is a way of encoding almost any kind of binary information as plain-vanilla, easy-to-transmit, easy-to-code and -decode, universally recognized ASCII text characters.

(If you’d like more MIME info, see the Wikipedia MIME entry. Wikipedia items are sometimes dodgy, but this one is generally excellent.)

Normally, an e-mail client handles the conversion of MIME attachments and you never see the unprocessed ASCII. But if you view the files as plain text, you’ll see the MIME encoding in its raw form.

The very simplest method of recovering a MIME e-mail is to save the source e-mail as a standalone file and present that file to your e-mail client as described below. It doesn’t always work (there are myriad variables), but it’s so easy it’s surely worth a try.

Use your text editor to isolate an entire e-mail message, from the start of its headers to the very end of the message (including any MIME attachment). First, paste the entire message into a new, blank text file and give the file a name with an .eml file extension (that’s the default e-mail file extension used by Thunderbird).

Double-click on the newly created .eml file, and — with luck — it will open in Thunderbird with the attachment displayed normally.

If that doesn’t work, you can try a MIME decoder utility. Most are intended for use on mail and Web servers, but some may do the trick on a regular PC. For example, Portable Mime DeEnCode 1.2.0 is free and available from Softpedia.

“Just got infected with this annoying program marked ‘Security Shield.’ It warned me I had 20 or more Trojan malwares. [It said that] to remove these, you have to buy the program. I went to a tech forum, and there were a lot of answers on how to remove it. All of these referred to a free program, Malwarebytes. But the free version does not download.

“So, I paid $25.95 for the Pro version. Still downloading, the installation is stuck at 43%.

“Would you know what this is all about? And how to remove Security Shield?”

“Security Shield” (also known as “My Security Shield”) is another of those scareware apps that try to frighten you into buying by displaying fake “Malware found!” messages. But Security Shield itself is the malware.

It’s sophisticated, and it tries to watch for — and block — the actions of real security tools. That’s most likely what’s blocking your download of Malwarebytes.

Security Shield can be removed, but it’s a multistep process. First, you have to terminate Security Shield’s own software processes. Only after that’s done can you download and run malware removal tools such as Malwarebytes — and get Security Shield completely off your PC.

If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, spywareremove.com’s article, “Security Shield removal guide,” has the info you need.

But an easier, more automated method is to use RKill, a free tool from bleepingcomputer.com. RKill is custom software designed to terminate Security Shield’s processes and restore the Registry entries that Security Shield alters.

You can find an explanation of RKill, usage instructions, and download links on the bleepingcomputer.com “Am I infected? What do I do?” page.

Once RKill has disabled Security Shield, you should then be able to complete your download of Malwarebytes and finish cleaning your PC.

If you’d like detailed instructions on using RKill and Malwarebytes together, you’ll find them on the bleepingcomputer.com “Destroy Spyware” page; scroll down to the section labeled “Automated Removal Instructions for Security Shield using Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware.”

If all goes well, your PC will be clean in about 15 minutes!

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praises, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum.

Reader Petri Laubert will receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of his choice for sending the tip we printed above. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page.

Fred Langa is a senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of Byte Magazine (1987–91), editorial director of CMP Media (1991–97), and editor of the LangaList e-mail newsletter from its origin in 1997 until its merger with Windows Secrets in November 2006.

When Windows won’t boot and you get on the phone for tech support, one of the most common solutions is to reinstall Windows.

But that should be your court of absolutely last resort. There are many less destructive and less time-consuming techniques for getting Windows up and running again.

Computer on strike? OS fails to show Most of us have been here at one time or another. You turn on your computer and wait for Windows to load itself. But before your desktop appears, an error message shows up on your screen. In some cases, Windows appears to be loading but then hangs; other times, your system locks up during its initial boot process. In some cases, your computer doesn’t even try to boot.

You shut it down, check all the connections, wait a few minutes, and try again — only to get the same sad results.

This can’t be good.

The most natural and understandable reaction at this point is to panic and swear about it. But locating and fixing the problem does you and your computer a lot more good. For this stop-you-in-your-tracks event, here’s what to do and how to do it. Using Windows’ built-in repair tools If Windows can’t start in the usual way, you may be able to boot and repair it in a simpler mode.

Typically, the release of a first service pack marks an operating system’s coming of age.

But Windows 7 has proven a mature product from its first release — and doesn’t absolutely need this not-so-major update.

947821 Preparation patches for Win7 SP1 more important The biggest patch news this week is the release of Windows 7 Service Pack 1. As Woody Leonhard points out in this week’s Top Story, SP1 turns out to be a ho-hum update for desktop PCs. It’s needed, but not immediately. For now, hold off on installing SP1 and wait for my installation tips next week.

More important are some updated patches that ensure client systems are ready for Service Pack 1. KB 947821, for example, is an update for the Windows System Update Readiness Tool. If you’re offered this patch before seeing Win7 SP1, it’s because Microsoft’s update system has determined your computer needs it.

► What to do: I recommend manually downloading the latest Readiness Tool in MS Support article 947821 and test your systems. Over time, Windows’ system resources can develop flaws that affect the Windows servicing store, causing updates to fail. If the Readiness Tool reports any issues, it’s better to take care of them before installing Win7 SP1. Updated language packs for Windows 7 Once you’ve installed SP1, you might need to get updated versions of tools that you depend on. For example, after you install SP1 on Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise systems, you may no longer find optional language packs (KB 972813) available for installation. Microsoft will soon release new versions that support SP1.

Did you know there’s an easy way to hide all those language updates with a few clicks? At the top of the Windows Update box, click Windows 7 Language Packs. This will highlight all 34 languages. With your cursor over the first language pack, right-click and choose Hide Updates. (See Figure 1.) Click OK; they’ll be hidden from view.

The Windows Secrets Newsletter is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. We skip an issue on the 5th Thursday of any month, the week of Thanksgiving, and the last two weeks of August and December. Windows Secrets is a continuation of four merged publications: Brian's Buzz on Windows and Woody's Windows Watch in 2004, the LangaList in 2006, and the Support Alert Newsletter in 2008.

Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by
Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, Support Alert, LangaList, LangaList Plus, WinFind, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting our
free signup page.

WE GUARANTEE YOUR PRIVACY:

1. We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside
party, ever.
2. We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides
newsletter updates.
3. All unsubscribe requests are honored immediately, period.
Privacy policy

HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe
from the Windows Secrets Newsletter,

Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, WinFind, Windows Gizmos, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of iNET Interactive. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.